Tremors of Spirit
by Natala-Rose
Summary: IYxYYHxTremors: When a supernatural disturbance sends the spirit detectives to Nevada, their investigation leads them to discovering a familiar face and meeting new allies. YusukeKagome KuramaKeiko


**Disclaimer:** Neither the animesYu Yu Hakusho, Inuyasha, nor the movie Tremors belong to us. They belong to their respective creators and we are only borrowing them for our amusement.

**Tremors of Spirit**

**_- Chapter 1 - _**

There was just something that made a person depressed about a large stack of paperwork on his desk. Especially when some of it was just mindless tasks that he was sure people could solve themselves. No one really needed to know that they had this many of that or that this spirit was displeased with that one. It was all so boring.

It was days where the paperwork just kept stacking up and Koenma was bored to tears that those small almost unnoticed announcements made him want to dance in glee. Sure, he'd have to deal with the stubborn detectives who he technically wasn't supposed to call on anymore, but it was fun to get them all riled up. They'd complain and say they weren't Reikai Tantei anymore, but in the end they'd take it, grumbling the whole way.

**Bam!**

The door slammed against the wall, rebounding forward into his favorite ex-detective's hand. With a sigh, Koenma got ready for Yusuke's temper.

"What is it this time, toddler? We have better things to do, you know?" Yusuke glared at the toddler prince, inwardly thrilled at the thought of another mission. Things were so boring now.

Three other figures filled the doorway behind the irate human turned Toushin. The red headed kitsune stood with his gaze directed away from the others in an attempt to stem the amused chuckles brimming in his chest. A funny scene always seemed to occur during the initial briefing before a mission.

The larger red head seemed almost, but not quite, as annoyed as the former spirit detective. He'd had plans set aside to take a certain Ice Apparition out to a nice restuarant that evening. Silently, Kuwabara hoped that the mission wouldn't take too long. He didn't want to disappoint Yukina.

The last and shortest of the group, simply glared at the proceedings as if he'd rather not be there. He really didn't _have_ to be, but then Mukuro had been getting on his nerves just a bit much lately and he figured this would be a good way to distract himself. Besides, if he was lucky, he might get to kill something.

The prince of Reikai eyed the four young men, easily falling into the routine they had established years ago. "Yusuke, what have I told you about calling me a toddler? And what better things do you have to do than investigate this? Besides, this ones a bit farther away than usual."

Yusuke raised a sardonic eyebrow and crossed his arms across his chest. "And this is a good thing because? Further away from home also means further to get home and you somehow end up giving us missions that make us dead tired by the end, even at our levels of power! Where are we going this time?"

Yusuke's gruff voice did nothing to hide the spark of curiosity in his eyes. Usually they were just sent to Makai or to subdue some new threat to Ningenkai. What was further away than Makai?

"A little town in Nevada. You know, in the United States. You do know what that is, don't you?" Koenma's snide remark passed by the young Toushin without a thought as he stared at his employer.

"What the hell? You're sending us to America?"

This revelation caught the other three's attention as well as their gazes immediately settled on Koenma as they intently listened.

"Er, uh, yes. That is correct." The chibi prince clarified. "But don't worry, despite the great distance we'll still be able to get in touch. You'll have Botan along for the mission as well and she will bring along the communication device."

At this point, a rather chipper voice sounded from behind the group. "Hello, boys!"

Two of the four jumped visibly, caught by surprise. One merely arched an eyebrow at the grinning, blue haired ferry girl as she made her way past them and into the room. The fourth didn't react at all, he was still too busy glaring.

"Great. Then I can yell at you from across the sea. What's in America, anyway?" Yusuke was still grumbling, but all four boys seemed curious to hear that answer. After all, nothing had ever happened in America before.

"Well, it appears that the so called "Graboids" have apparently somehow gained some sort of demonic power. A new batch recently hatched and there have been strange things happening. The aura is very dark around there. I want you to destroy whatever graboid is causing the problems and make sure none of the others have recieved a similiar effect." Koenma answered, his baby form leaning back as Yusuke stared at him blankly and Hiei's glare took on a tinge of confusion.

"What the hell's a Graboid?" Yusuke asked, the confusion evident on his face. It was a certain informed red head who answered him.

"Graboids are creatures that were discovered in a small town in Nevada called Perfection Valley a few years prior. They're great beasts that live entirely underground, have no eyes and hunt by sensing vibrations through the ground. They then come up beneath its victim and consumes them whole." Kurama explained simply, he glanced over at Koenma. "They were labeled as non demonic. Simple Ningenkai creatures. How could they have gained enough reiki that the Spirit World has sensed them?"

"We don't know. That's something else you'll have to investigate. We have plane tickets for you all that leave tomorrow. There are a people out in the desert in a protected area that you may want to go to stay at while you investigate this. Believe me, you don't want to sleep on open ground." Koenma's face was grim.

"Like any stupid blind creatures could possibly hurt us anyway," Yusuke muttered, unimpressed at the description, especially since they were apparently supposed to be Ningenkai animals.

Koenma just shook his head in amusement at Yusuke. "It's your funeral. Fortunately I still have the outfit perfect for attending that spectacular event. Though I doubt you'd stay dead a third time anymore than you did the first two."

Yusuke fumed at the toddler prince's comment while Kuwabara and Kurama both smothered snickers. Hiei merely rolled his eyes, used to such bickering between the former Spirit Detective and his ex-boss. Finally, Yusuke decided that enough was enough. They needed to be on their way if they wanted to prepare for their flight out the next day.

"Alright guys, what do you say? You ready to go kick some 'grab-whatsit's' butt?"

"It's 'Graboid', Yusuke." Kurama reminded his friend. Yusuke simply waved him away.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I just wanna go kick its ass so we can come back home sooner. You guys with me or not?"

"Hn," Hiei said, but he inclined his head slightly which everyone took for his own positive agreement. Yusuke just rolled his eyes and looked at the other two.

Kuwabara gave a great sigh. Well, at least he did get to take Yukina to that restaurant. But then he was going far away, all the way across the ocean and who knew when he'd be back? "Yeah, I'll go. Though, if I'm going to be that far from Yukina, I hope we get to bring home souvenirs. I always did want to see one of them Graboids!"

A bit startled that Kuwabara had known something he didn't, Yusuke stared at his friend a moment before turning to a thoughtful looking fox. "So? What about you Kurama?"

"I have always been interested in America," Kurama replied, coming to a decision with a nod of his head. "Yes, I believe I will join you on this particular mission.

"Alright then! Where are those plane tickets Koenma?" Yusuke said, grinning suddenly, carefree and with an anticipatory spark in his eye. Koenma chuckled.

"Botan will deliver them to you at four tomorrow morning. Remember to pack!" Koenma's voice rose on the last part as Yusuke put his hands behind his head and began to walk out, followed by an eager Kuwabara wanting to hurry to his precious Yukina.

Kurama chuckled as Hiei stomped out after the other two followed by a giggling Botan as she went off to pack her own belongings. "I'll make sure they're prepared Koenma-sama. Good day."

Kurama exited the office, shutting the door behind him and leaving Koenma to the mournful task of finishing his paperwork.

The harsh rays of the Nevada sun beat down fiercely on the two slight female forms. The darker haired woman, clad in a light blue t-shirt and short khaki shorts, the smaller brunette in similar shorts, but a lavender shirt instead of blue. From inside of the bunker style house, a male voice called out for assistance.

"Keiko! Could you come down here and give me a hand with these crates, dear? I've got a shipment of 458 cartridges I need to take down before I do inventory."

The brunette stood up from her crouched position, smiling as she brought a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun's glare. "Sure thing, Burt, be right there!" Turning back to her companion, Keiko Yukimura said, "I'll be right back, Kagome. Will you be okay out here by yourself?"

Kagome Higurashi smiled up at her good friend and college classmate. "Sure thing, Keiko. Believe me, I've got my eye on the seismographs. They won't be sneaking up on me anytime soon."

Keiko nodded, cast a wary glance out toward the vast barren land stretched out before their host's home before turning and making her way inside the bunker.

It was only a few more minutes of Kagome working outside when she stiffened. She straightened up and her grey-blue eyes focused out into the desert on a truck just coming into sight.

Puzzled and curious, the young woman stepped a few more feet out into the open, shading her eyes and looking towards the truck before quickly glancing at the seismographs. Apparently they were doing something else today if even this noise wasn't rousing them.

As the truck came closer Kagome noted the four guys and one girl sitting in it, none of them looking like they were used to the heat and glaring sun of the Nevada desert. Her eyes narrowed as for the first time in what had been years she sensed the odd power that had once surrounded her everyday life.

Three demons, or at least sort of demons considering they all were odd, one human, and one unknown. Kagome's eyes focused on the girl in curiosity as the truck came to a stop before flickering to the other.

They were all staring at her now. She saw the confusion in their eyes first, then caught at least three of the boys looking her over. She hid a snort of amusement and held out her hand, flashing a bright friendly smile. "Hi, I'm Kagome Higurashi."

Everyone stared at her hand for a few moments in confusion at the very normal gesture and Kagome had a brief moment of amusement at wondering what they had expected. She wasn't going to eat them. Then there was a warm slightly calloused hand belonging to a cute young man- no, young _looking_ demon male shaking hers. Still belonged to someone cute of course.

"Hey. I'm Yusuke Urameshi." There was a curl to his lips that she recognized from any confident swaggering male that ever walked the face of the planet, or any other. He was smirking at her. She raised an eyebrow at him and looked pointedly towards his friends, two of whom were also cute, but one was broody and the other looked too polite for his own good.

"Oh, them," Yusuke muttered and jerked his head over his shoulder, still holding the girl's hand from shaking it. "Introduce yourselves."

They were beginning to when another rather familiar girl began emerging from the building nearby.

"Hey, Kags? Burt needs us to help him sort out the ammo later. He's gotten way too many crates of cartridges in the den and-" At that moment, the new arrival looked up to find five sets of gawking... well, four sets of gawking, one set of seemingly uninterested eyes staring at her.

"KEIKO?!" Came the chorus of disbelieving voices.

Keiko stared at them all, her hands lax at her sides as her jaw seemed to unhinge in astonishment. "G-guys.. Botan?" Keiko managed to squeak out.

Kagome looked curiously between the group of mostly supernaturally powered people and the normal seeming Keiko, her curiosity of the new group turning quickly to surprise. "I'm guessing you know these de- um, these people?"

Kagome ignored the sudden strange looks from a couple of them and was glad to see they were still mostly focused on Keiko with expression from surprise and curiosity to even more extreme surprise and extreme curiosity, though she could see some pleasure worming its way through the emotions flooding the air as well.

Keiko was still in a state of semi shock. Of all the people she'd expect to see in Perfection, _Yusuke, Botan, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama_ were not amongst them. Actually, she'd never expected to see anyone she knew this far away from Tokyo. This brought up an interesting question for Keiko. "What are you all doing here?"

Kagome turned an eye back to the group when the young male demon she'd been oogling (Admiring! I was just admiring) earlier, answered her college room mate.

"Koenma sent us." Was all he said, causing Kagome to raise an eyebrow in curiosity. Keiko, however, seemed to understand. _'Must know who this Koenma is.'_ Kagome thought.

Yusuke saw the confused expression on Kagome's face and had to hide a smirk. Who knew that there could be such a hot girl found in the middle of an American desert? Something was telling him she was a bit more than she appeared to be, but he shrugged that off as his paranoia working overtime.

There was a question that was nagging him when Keiko appeared and forced him to turn away from the pleasant task of studying the young woman in front of him.

"Now that we've answered that question, what are _you_ doing here?" He eyed Keiko as she shifted and suddenly seemed to remember something as her eyes widened and she looked towards the equipment. Kagome was already there when Yusuke turned, pushing a few buttons until suddenly there seemed to be a beeping noise and both girls went pale faced.

"We're here to study them!" Kagome pointed out at the desert to the fast approaching lumps of dirt which had worm like creatures underneath.

Keiko was already thinking ahead and trying to grab everything at once to get behind the underground concrete walls and save their equipment. She was soon joined by a frantic Kagome as the boys and Botan stared at the approaching Graboids and then looked at the crazy girls caring more about their equipment being safe than getting to safety themselves.

"What the hell are those?" Yusuke growled, immediately glancing over at the red head to his right.

"Those would be the Graboids, Yusuke." Kurama replied, his eyes fixed on the quickly approaching lumps of dirt. Suddenly, when the lumps were only a few meters away from the group, they seemingly disappeared as the Graboids tunneled a bit deeper beneath the ground.

"Oh, great, they could come up anywhere at any moment now. Faster Kagome! We can't lose this equipment again!" Keiko called to her friend as she grabbed another piece of machinery.

"Again?!" Yusuke bellowed, glaring pointedly at Keiko now. "What the hell do you mean "again"?!" Just how long have been out here, Keiko?!"

"Hey guys, uh, I don't really think there's time for this. Shouldn't we be like, going for cover or something?" Kuwabara cut in as Keiko didn't reply, seeing as she was still too caught up in gathering her equipment.

"We really should. All of us. Um, Keiko?" Botan called worriedly. Keiko blinked and looked up briefly before gathering more things and shoving them into handy metal containers. "Right, you guys should get to safety. Be there in a minute."

Kagome had three containers stacked and was thinking she could at least carry two more in one load when part of her half of the equipment she hadn't packed up yet went flying in a fantastic manner as a Graboid came up under the whirring machinery. Instead of squealing and running away, as a tribute to her experience she stayed absolutely still as it destroyed a good portion of her equipment.

"Damn worm," Kagome muttered in a way reminiscent of Burt despite the different language. Ignoring the two Graboids getting ever closer she piled even more equipment in even as one bumped a table nearby Keiko, flipping it and its contents over.

"What the hell are you two doing?" Yusuke yelled. Botan had prudently gone nearer the building and inside the fence, but the four boys hadn't moved as they watched the foolhardy girls.

Three tentacle-like appendages were snaking from the mouth of the Graboid nearest Keiko. The brunette stilled her actions, standing stock still as the feelers of the creature drew near. One was just about to reach her ankle when she cautiously lifted it from the ground, balancing herself on the other leg. After searching around for a few minutes fruitlessly, the thing slithered back to its owner as the Graboid slowly lowered back into the dirt.

Kagome's Graboid seemed to be a bit more insistent and continued a few minutes longer with its search, but finally, it too receded. The two girls released simultaneous sighs of relief when the rumbling sound of the Graboids had disappeared into the distance.

"That was close." Keiko smiled brightly at Kagome, who returned the gesture with one of her own.

"I think that's the closest we've gotten to one yet, don't you think, Keiko?" Kagome asked, her eyes seeming to dance with a fire of excitement that matched Keiko's.

"Oh yeah, definitely. Burt's going to scold us for sure." Keiko laughed, but was cut off again.

"It's not this Burt person you've got to worry about, _Ms._ Yukimura."

Yusuke's voice finally penetrated Keiko's excitement due to their Graboid encounter. "Uh... oh, hey, Yusuke!" Keiko attempted a cheerful greeting to her childhood friend, then cringed as she took in his expression.

Kagome was looking over his expression as well and sighed, feeling sorry for her friend. Not, however, sorry enough to endure the long ranting and yelling that was sure to come if the expressions on the rest of the new groups face was any indication. "This is where you get ranted at, right? Because I always find that a bit boring and if so I'm going to abandon you and go inside and see which videogame Souta's being fascinated with this time and go over some readouts. That attack was a bit close and I'm sure we have some interesting data now."

Keiko gave her an offended look but was quite cheered up when Yusuke swung around to the dark haired girl and pointed a commanding finger at her. "You aren't going anywhere."

Kagome crossed her arms and eyed him up and down, unimpressed by the forbidding expression on his face as she arched an eyebrow and jutted out her chin and said defensively, "Excuse me? You don't even know me! You can't scold me!"

"Wanna bet?" Keiko muttered in an undertone as Yusuke glared at them and opened his mouth, only to be interrupted by a smooth talking Kurama.

"While I can see why you would want to save your equipment as a valuable asset, surely it is more important that you remain safe and able to do your work at a later time rather than risk both your lives and all of your data so far by putting yourselves at such risk." Keiko felt her stomach drop down and she lowered her face in shame as Kurama's soft voice scolded them, disappointment clear in his tone.

"B-but, we really weren't in that much danger!" Kagome protested weakly.

"Riiiight." Yusuke's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"But we weren't! Right, Keiko?" Kagome looked desperately at her friend for help and found her looking guiltily at the red-headed demon who was still looking at her reproachfully.

"Well... maybe we should have headed in a bit earlier, Kagome," Keiko muttered quietly.

Kagome stared at her, then hissed out a quite childish, "Traitor."

"Sorry," Keiko winced visibly at her friend's retort, "Listen, it's all over with and we're both fine, right? Let's just get past this and go inside where we can all talk. It's obvious that we need to." As her friend spoke, Kagome took note of the way her eyes kept darting in the red head's direction. _'Ooh, interesting.'_ She thought, before her own gaze wandered over toward the demon named Yusuke.

"Why don't we do that?" Despite Yusuke halfway pleasant tone, both girls could feel the bitter cold undertone and halfway slunk towards the door, feeling a bit like kicked puppies even as Kagome's eyes flickered between the red head and Keiko with a sly smirk that kept turning to a slight blush everytime she found herself looking at the sarcastic demon man.

"Burt?" Keiko called hesitantly in English as they went inside. "We have some visitors."

Kagome was less subtle. Obviously there needed to be a talk but she doubted it would get done with either of the curious males that lived with them wondering who they were. "SOUTA! Get off the game and get in the den, NOW! People to meet!"

Keiko winced at the volume and shook her head at the grinning Kagome who didn't look in the least bit apologetic. It wasn't long before two men, one around his mid-forties, graying auburn hair and mustache, the other a young man just coming out of his teens who bore a slight resemblance to Kagome.

"Oh, hello there. I didn't realize we had guests. Welcome to the Gummer blockade as I like to refer to my humble abode. And you might be?" Burt greeted the group of arrivals kindly. He directed his question at the blue haired woman, taking her hand in his in a gesture of greeting.

The younger man was looking bored for a moment before he got that familiar look of curiosity after his eyes landed briefly on all of them. Kagome recognized it all to well as Botan said, "Hello. I'm Botan, and these are my friends, Yusuke, Kurama, Hiei, and Kuwabara."

As she pointed to them each in time, the teenager included himself in the conversation. "And I'm Souta, Kagome's younger brother. You all have weird auras. Are you demons?"

There was the sound of Kagome's hand hitting her forehead with a smack as Souta grinned, pleased at the embarrassment and letting out her long held secret. On the other hand, she could get pretty violent sometimes. Time for a retreat. "I think I'll go play more video games now."

"Oh no you don't! Souta, get back here!" Kagome ranted as her brother made his get away. Keiko rolled her eyes as Burt chuckled in amusement. That is, until Souta's question registered in his sharp mind. "Um, pardon me, Kagome. But did he just say demons?"


End file.
